Author: Jim Morgan
On November 22, 1963, I was a member of the Seven-Ups, a NYPD Narcotic Bureau unit made famous by the French Connection case. We had just finished lunch in a west side Manhattan bar and grill and were leaving in pursuit of fame and fortune via another big case. Someone on the street said Kennedy had been shot, “Popeye” Egan, our unofficial leader, blurted out “Damn it, now we can’t start our next adventure until we find out who shot the Commissioner.”
You see, Steve Kennedy was the New York City Police Commissioner back then. We spent the next 15 minutes planning our strategy to help find the shooter. Finally we learned it was President Kennedy and we felt better. Probably the only citizens who were relieved that it was the President who had been shot.
The following year I joined the FBI. During my New Agents training, our class was at a firing range in Quantico when an agent brought a Carcano rifle for our firearms instructor to see if he could get three shots off in the time frame established it had taken to fire into the president’s vehicle. Not only was he able to do it, but with a good degree of accuracy. Although this was an unofficial test, and we were never told if this was THE Carcano that killed the president, I became a believer that it was possible for a shooter to get three shots off rapidly and accurately with such a weapon..
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